Friday, December 30, 2011

Book-shopping on Christmas Eve

During a last-minute, impromptu visit to Carlson & Turner on Christmas Eve I picked up a couple examples of early American printing for the Rare Book School collection. One of them, an edition of Sallust printed at New York in 1817 (it's missing the title page, but a look at WorldCat and Google Books confirms it as the 1817, one of several editions published in NYC (or at Novi-Eboraci, as it is given in the imprint) by James Eastburn.

I bought it for the nice little book label on the front pastedown, for D.C. printers and booksellers Davis & Force (that's William A. Davis, formerly of New York, and Peter Force, who would later edit American Archives.) Only when I looked more closely at it later did I see the very cute use of the "D.C." in the label to make "December 24th 1829" (or possibly 1825). So, it looks a bit like someone else had been doing a little Christmas Eve book-shopping!

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About Me

Reviews of books old and new; news and commentary on book history, library culture, digital humanities, archives and related subjects. Written by Jeremy Dibbell, a bibliophile, haunter of used bookstores, and Director of Communications and Outreach for Rare Book School. Email: philobiblos@gmail.com.